In conventional TV systems/products (e.g. Youview®) a user can access a list of programs available on a content server for delivery and selects a program in the list. The user can read a description of the selected program to decide whether to watch the selected programme or to select another program in the list. The description is of the nature of a sentence or a few sentences within a single free-form text field. The description is a powerful marketing tool used to elevate the best attributes of a program and to prompt users to watch the program.
A shortcoming arising from conventional TV systems/products is that a generic description is provided to all users and to all user equipments. However, a generic description cannot suit all users because different users make their choices based on different aspects of what is offered. Some users are interested in actors (e.g. Brad Pitt) while others are interested in awards (e.g. awarded an Oscar). Further, not all aspects can be fitted in one generic description especially when the allocated space is limited. Some user equipments have a 150 characters allocated space while others have a 500 characters allocated space. In practice, the size of the generic description may be larger than the size of the allocated space and part of the generic description must be omitted. To the contrary, the size of the generic description may be smaller than the size of the allocated space and the allocated space is not fully used. Consequently, a generic description does not efficiently elevate the best attributes of a programme and does not efficiently prompt users to watch the programme. As a result, the user experience is degraded (the user may decide not to watch a programme although he/she would have liked it) and the profits made by a provider are reduced (less pay per view and advertising revenues). In conventional TV systems/products, providing personalised descriptions tailored to users or to user equipments would require editing the descriptions manually, which is a lengthy and costly task.
The invention aims at addressing these problems.